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What's up with the scare quotes in the headline? Is it because the article is quoting Jackson in calling the Mets's behavior racism? Because it seems that "You can't play for us because of the color of your skin combined with the color of your girlfriend's skin" is pretty much the definition of racism.

Fortunately the Mets made a safer, non-rascist choice in 1980 when they selected a mild mannered, African-American outfielder who was the best slugging prospect of his day in that draft. Hard to believe that the "Strawman" and the "Straw that Stirs the Drink" were 14 years apart as they were both playing when Mr. October was just DHing while becoming Mr. December.

Didn't they get Agee from Chicago? I remember having his White Sox baseball card.

EDIT: To answer my own question, he was actually signed by Cleveland, was part of a blockbuster 3-way trade with KC and Chicago that included names like Tommy John and Rocky Colavito, and was then traded by the Chisox to the Mets:

Courtesy of bb-reference-

Before 1961 Season: Signed by the Cleveland Indians as an amateur free agent.
January 20, 1965: Traded as part of a 3-team trade by the Cleveland Indians with Tommy John and John Romano to the Chicago White Sox. The Chicago White Sox sent Cam Carreon to the Cleveland Indians. The Chicago White Sox sent a player to be named later, Mike Hershberger and Jim Landis to the Kansas City Athletics. The Kansas City Athletics sent Rocky Colavito to the Cleveland Indians. The Chicago White Sox sent Fred Talbot (February 10, 1965) to the Kansas City Athletics to complete the trade.
December 15, 1967: Traded by the Chicago White Sox with Al Weis to the New York Mets for Buddy Booker, Tommy Davis, Jack Fisher and Billy Wynne.

Relationships with many of his teammates remained sour, and he notes that of the team’s black players, only Willie Randolph reached out. “The rest . . . I felt they were always supporting the other side. I couldn’t understand it. Most of the black players on our team did not support me, and that hurt.”

This may come as a surprise to you, Reggie, but you're kind of a jerk.

It's too bad the Mets also passed on Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee, and as a result never won a pennant until 1986.

Some people may have forgotten that Mets chairman M. Donald Grant forced Jones to hold a tearful news conference with his wife in 1975, after a minor incident with police after Jones was found asleep in a van with a white woman.

It wasn't just that Jones was found in a van with a woman who was not his wife; he was found naked in a van with a naked woman who was not his wife. There's no way to know what the reaction would have been had the woman not also been white, but I think it's safe to assume the team would try to force some kind of amends out of Jones for the simple charge of indecent exposure.

To Bob's point, regardless of how the trade turned out, Martin's sentiments toward Bobby Bonds had a hand in landing him in Anaheim. @Andrew, he's written a few. I actually thought the book he wrote with Lupica was a good read.

Grant was disgusting in the public way he humiliated Cleon but wasn't the only racist in the group. From the beginning, George Weiss, whose hatred of blacks was well-known, was part of the Mets "Brain-Trust."

Martin was a hateful drunk who used his "tough" upbringing in Oakland as a convenient excuse for his borish behavior. As a player and manager, putting his numerous loathable traits aside, he had a pretty good baseball mind, though Reggie's assertion about him torching pitchers' arms is correct.

I never understood as a kid why the Yankees didn't use Holtzman. I assumed he was at the end of his rope but he was a stud with Oakland and the Cubs.

Was at Martin's first game as Yankee manager at Shea. Old Timer's Day in 1975 at Shea. Pretty cool to see Mantle, Joe D and Mays (I think Snider as well) in person.

"It wasn't just that Jones was found in a van with a woman who was not his wife; he was found naked in a van with a naked woman who was not his wife. There's no way to know what the reaction would have been had the woman not also been white, but I think it's safe to assume the team would try to force some kind of amends out of Jones for the simple charge of indecent exposure."

The story has a happy ending. Jones went on to invent and trademark the bumper sticker "if this van's a rockin, don't come a knockin".

Whitey Herzog was also involved with the Mets' scouting dept at that time. He had a very good record of not caring about players' race, didn't he? And I thought he said in his book that Chilcott would've been a worthy choice but he got hurt.

And as #26 says, Reggie Jackson is not an entirely trustworthy source on the subject of Reggie Jackson.

An outfield of Jones, Agee and Jackson would have been pretty impressive. Knocks out Swoboda and my childhood hero, Shamsky, but that would have been amongst the best in the bigs at that time. (Of course, it would have started to go downhill as soon as some idiot decided that he had a mancrush on Jim Fregosi and Agee got hurt.)

Martin was very hard to figure. Sure, he had problems with black players like Reggie, Maddox, and Sample (for reasons that remain unknown) and then he had great relationships with other black players like Rickey Henderson and Lenny Randle. Rickey had some of his best seasons playing for Martin and loved playing for him. And Randle swears by Martin to this day.

I believe Reggie on the charge against the Mets. The story I had always heard was that the Mets didn't like Reggie's tendency to date white women; the story about a Mexican girlfriend, while a bit different in detail, involves a similar kind of racism. So it sounds perfectly plausible to me.

Oscar Gamble has said similar things about his days in Chicago with the Cubs. He dated white women while there and says that upset the Cubs' front office so much that they traded him and Dick Selma to the Phillies for Johnny Callison.

you'll notice the headline is written so poorly as to be ambiguous. Is it that the reason was "not racism" or the reason he was not picked was "racisim." I get it now after reading the comments (racism) but even the excerpt it still wasnt clear.

Martin seems like a goof; and his drinking problems probably didnt help with his dealings with humans.

Not sure Bobby Bonds is a good example, I dont think he got along with many people. He was always being traded, which isnt definitive but still...

Martin was very hard to figure. Sure, he had problems with black players like Reggie, Maddox, and Sample (for reasons that remain unknown) and then he had great relationships with other black players like Rickey Henderson and Lenny Randle. Rickey had some of his best seasons playing for Martin and loved playing for him. And Randle swears by Martin to this day.

Smart people (not just players) vs. ones that were not and could be manipulated by Billy.

I've had a few discussions with Billy Sample and Elliott on this topic and Martin's open hatred of them - my favorite one being sitting in Tel Aviv drinking Stellas while watching the sun set on the Mediterranean. And been a fly on the wall when Frank Robinson and Reggie Smith talked about the racial nature of the game in the 60's and 70's.

I still can't believe I'm defending a guy that I told to sot off at second base in Anaheim in 1982.....

I don't think he was hard to figure at all, he was an alcoholic narcissist. Sure he could be a nice guy when people were bending to his will but generally he was just a jackass. Maybe he had reasons for it (his upbringing) but the end result is the same. For what it's worth I don't think he was a racist, I think he was an equal opportunity jackass.

It wasn't just that Jones was found in a van with a woman who was not his wife; he was found naked in a van with a naked woman who was not his wife. There's no way to know what the reaction would have been had the woman not also been white, but I think it's safe to assume the team would try to force some kind of amends out of Jones for the simple charge of indecent exposure.

I think this is and was the type of situation where the team's reaction should be to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen. In any event, what the Mets actually did was appalling.